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Rory, you're misrepresenting the Constitution's framework, but first about Judge Sotomayer. Not knowing the context of the sentence you quote by Judge Sotomayer, and being neither a supporter nor a critic of her, I too question the judge's characterization. Still, you quote her as saying "where policy is made," but you write as if she said "where laws are made." As a point of fact, policies are constitutionally different from laws.

Meanwhile, the Constitution's framework is, as you say, pretty clear: The legislative branch makes the laws. But it's not, as you write, the judicial branch that "enforces" the laws. That's the executive branch. The judicial branch interprets the laws. My position? I'm all in favor of judges applying a dispassionate interpretation of the laws that Congress makes and the executive branch enforces, but I mean, seriously, who isn't in favor of those jurists being men and women who possess empathy? The president didn't say he favors empathetic laws besides. He said he's interested in the next Supreme Court Justice being an empathetic individual.

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